Why Is Huck Finn Really Free

Improved Essays
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” (Nelson Mandela) Even though Mandela didn’t live in the time when Slavery was legal, he fought against segregation in South Africa. Him fighting for these rights led to him being in prison for twenty seven years. This didn't stop him from fighting against society, just like Huckleberry Finn did in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain. Huck Finn helped a runaway slave became free, knowing that he was fighting against society, he didn't give up on his friend Jim. Huck knew that slavery was an important issue during the time he lived, Huck respected everyone, even if that person was a slave, he made Jim feel like he was a free man even though he wasn’t free. Huck and Jim both want freedom, but in different ways, Huck wants freedom from society, but Jim wants freedom from slavery and …show more content…
If Huck wasn’t serious about becoming fee he wouldn’t attempt what he is doing. There were many risks that he faces. Huck wanting freedom is very different from what Jim wants, they have different reasoning why they want to be free. Huck doesn’t like living like he is a civilized man, he says “so when I couldn’t stand it no longer, I lit out” (Twain 2). This is just one of the reasons why he wants to be free, he can’t stand living like that. Huck also wants freedom from Pap Finn. Huck wants freedom from him because Pap abuses him and Pap wants to steal Huck’s money. Huck says “he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple times and thrashed me” (Twain 25). Huck is scared of Pap, he wants freedom from his dad. Huck’s life is in danger if he stays around where is dad can get to him very

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the book Huckleberry finn, it it is evident that there is a lot of alcoholism throughout Hucks adolescent stage of life. This brings out a possible theme that is, “ the choices others make do not have to deter the choices you make.” Huck demonstrates this throughout the novel by not conforming to his paps ways, by gaining mutual respect for the runaway slave, Jim, and learning how to survive despite his rough upbringing. During the novel, huck is kidnapped by his Pap.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Huck desires his freedom from the start of the book and he reaches his dream through his wonderful, yet hard journey on the river. The days slip by and the river pushes him and Jim along to an uncertain destination. Without the Mississippi, Huck would never have met the people and had the experiences he did while running wild and…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “The only way to deal with an unfree world is too become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Albert Camus explains in his famous quote how everyone at some time or another has their own quest to find freedom in their lives. For people, freedom is getting away from the world and going to a secret place to think about their thoughts and actions. In order to reach freedom they had to make radical changes in their life and begin to bravely do things on their own and make decisions quickly when they are in a difficult situation. In Mark Twain’s famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huck and Jim are both on their own quest of freedom to become freemen.…

    • 170 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain satirizes freedom by using indirect satire. Huck and Jim both yearn for freedom. Huck wants to be free of petty manners, societal values, and of his abusive father. Maybe more than anything, Huck wants to be free such that he can think independently and do what his heart tells him to do.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Huck Finn Corrupts Society

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Stoid Society: A Place Where Some Fall Prey, but Some Dominate. “[Huck] was the only really independent person--boy or man—in the community.” So proclaims Brooks, a critic of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Huck empathizes for and helps others, even sometimes risking his own freedom and happiness to do so. For example, when Huck sees Mary Jane crying, he “felt awful bad to see it”.…

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Huckleberry Finn is the most conscientious character in his book. He helps criminals out when their life 's in danger. He tries to save a whole family from being broken up by con artists. Huckleberry even gives up his image and respectability, and his chance of going to heaven, just to free his friend Jim when he was trapped. However, are Huck and Jim actually friends?…

    • 1975 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Themes (3 major themes identified & significance explained): 1. Maturation through what you believe to be right and not what society tells you Huck goes through numerous adventures and incidents before he matures, and as those incidents occur he makes realizations about himself, those around him, and about society in general. Huck has a good conscience, however his society does everything it possibly can to hinder his ability to think in any way that is different to what they deem to be correct. Huck faces a major internal conflict when he realizes that he should turn in Jim because that is what his society would wish for him to do, however he also listens to his own judgement and quickly realizes that to turn him in would be wrong,…

    • 1622 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is only when Jim starts talking about his freedom makes Huck , afraid that he will be abandoned, revert to the southern way of thinking. However, at the same time Huck goes against the southern way of life in many ways as he goes against what the Widow Douglas tries to teach him. This way of thinking is what helps him change what he was taught, and continue his journey with Jim rather than being subjugated to…

    • 2048 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Huck’s continuing journey, now undertaken with Jim, ultimately leads to Huck realize how twisted many elements of society are, and how he can choose his own path. As Huck and Jim are camping out on an island, Huck begins to wonder whether or not he is doing the right thing by helping Jim escape: “What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old women do to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word” (Twain 110). Huck’s thinking at this particular moment comes from what he was taught all his life; slavery is good. The fact that Huck does not follow this conventional wisdom and is struggling against it in listening to his conscience, shows how he is distancing himself from the conformity of the society he grew up in.…

    • 1963 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Journey to Freedom The novel I have chosen is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. The protagonist in the novel is Huckleberry Finn. Huck is an early teenager who lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri.…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This character also shows the readers why Huck faces such a conflicting moral dilemma when choosing whether or not to free a slave. Children in the south like Huck, were all raised on the opinion to hate anyone who is not white. Even though Huck and Jim were friends, our protagonist still had a hard time going against the ideals that he'd been raised on his whole…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Character Development The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is about a young boy, named Huck, who was raised by a race that thinks they are superior than others and were taught the same way. He did not have a mother and his father was never home, but when he was home he mistreated Huck. Due to the abuse from his father, Huck decided to run away from home, but Huck was not the only one that ran away. Jim, a slave, ran away as well the same day that Huck day.…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Huck was able to realize that he depended on Jim to survive. Huck Finn was also able to understand how Jim felt living in a society of racism and…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Longhorne Clemens, under the pen name Mark Twain, is described as “an extraordinary work….. it is a great novel” by New York Times. The genre of this great American novel is often referred to as satire. This novel is about a young boy named Huck struggling to overcome the internal problem of what his conscience tells him what's right and what society tells him what is right. There are many themes in this book, which makes it leave a long lasting impression on the person who is reading it.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Knowledge – The Key to the Locked Door of Freedom The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn both suggest that knowledge is the key to freedom. Freedom means something different to each and every one of us. For the most part, freedom applies to rights, religion, speech, or just plainly to be all that you can be. Without those core fundamentals of freedom, one’s hands are tied to try and become most anything.…

    • 1569 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays